


but be prepared to bleed

by miss_frankenstein



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Character Death, Doctor John Watson, Gen, Greg Lestrade & John Watson Friendship, Heavy Angst, Hurt No Comfort, John Loves Sherlock, M/M, Not Actually Unrequited Love, POV John Watson, Pining John, Pining Sherlock, Season/Series 01, Sherlock Holmes and Feelings, Sherlock Loves John
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-22
Updated: 2014-07-22
Packaged: 2018-02-09 06:43:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,835
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1972800
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/miss_frankenstein/pseuds/miss_frankenstein
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>“Ah,” Sherlock huffs out, a smile ghosting over his blood-stained lips, “Forbidding me to die… Does that work on your other patients?”</i>
</p><p>A Series One AU in which a miscalculation forces Sherlock and John to be honest about things they thought they would have more time to figure out.</p>
            </blockquote>





	but be prepared to bleed

**Author's Note:**

> In case any of you missed it in the tags, this piece contains a major character death - I just want to make sure you all know that before going in.

* * *

_I met a woman, she had a mouth like yours_

_She knew your life - she knew your devils and your deeds_

_And she said, "Go to him, stay with him if you can,_

_But be prepared to bleed."_

**Joni Mitchell, "A Case of You"**

* * *

 

Their laughter bounces off the brick walls of the alley, skipping up and piercing through the fog of the humid London evening. Their running footsteps are a constant, _allegrissimo_ rhythm on the rain-slick pavement and the crisp bangs of gunfire behind them add to the delightful cacophony of pursuit.

“Go, John!” Sherlock urges, fresh glee in his voice from an operation executed to perfection, his coat and scarf whipping behind him as he runs.

John laughs, never turning around. “I’m going! I’m going!” he cries, a smile on his face as another bullet whizzes over their heads, their pursuer miserably off-target. “ _You_ hurry up!” calls John over his shoulder, “You’re falling behind!”

They splash through a particularly deep puddle, never losing speed. “I am not falling behind,” corrects Sherlock, shouting to John, “I simply do not feel the need to run as fast as you given the fact that our pursuer is –”

_Bang!_

There is a stumble and a fall behind John, a harsh swishing of material and a loud thump of bone smashing against pavement.

And then there is silence.

In one crushing, sickening moment that feels oddly suspended in time, a blindingly white flash of shock and horror courses through John’s body and he feels very, very light all of a sudden – as if all the blood has drained from his veins. His heart is hammering in his chest – the pounding now in his head, in his ears, in his throat – and for a moment that’s all he can hear, all he can _feel_ because everything else has gone cold. Every sound around him seems sharper and closer than it did before – his breathing sounds far louder than it did a second ago and even the rustle of his jacket seems to have magnified in volume. John knows – he _knows_ – what sight will greet him when he turns and this heart-wrenching certainty rips through him, something in his chest splitting like a board snapped in half.

_Buh-bum._

John’s heart thrums violently.

_Buh-bum._

John spins around.

_Buh-bum._

“Sherlock!”

The cry tears through the silence in the alleyway. The single word reverberates in the enclosed space, replacing the echoes of their laughter from mere seconds ago. Without consciously moving his legs, John is suddenly at Sherlock’s side, hands everywhere – turning, smoothing, feeling, checking, trembling.

“Oh, God. Oh, God. Sherlock… _Fuck._ ”

Sherlock splutters – an undignified and sloppy noise John never would have _dreamed_ Sherlock could make – and the barest twist of a smile is on his lips. “Not much of a… bedside manner... for a doctor,” he wheezes, his voice entirely too soft and weak.

“Sherlock,” breathes John, unable to say anything else, too shocked to muster up anything but his name.

 “John… The shooter…”

“O-of course. Right.” And John looks up, takes perfect aim, and fires. Their pursuer, still a few yards away, drops and John is once more focused on Sherlock.

“Good shot,” mutters the detective, amused. He looks up at John with eyes that prompt him to remember – remember the first (wonderful) time he said those words to him – but of course he remembers. Of course he does.

“No, no, no,” whispers John, shaking his head as he presses his hands to the damp, dark patch blossoming on Sherlock’s chest. “Sherlock – _Sherlock!_ Stay with me.  _Stay with me_. I’ll call an ambulance –”

“No need,” says Sherlock. His words are slightly garbled and a ribbon of red trickles down from the corner of his lips. “Although an embarrassingly sloppy criminal, he had at least… one decent shot in him. I’ll give him that.”

John takes one of his hands away from exerting pressure on Sherlock’s injury to brush away that line of blood from his lips with his thumb, but only succeeds in smearing it.  The sight of Sherlock’s pale mouth smudged with scarlet makes John feel a pull – a visceral, vicious pull – that rips him open like a gaping wound. “I’m calling an ambulance,” he chokes out, one hand still pressed to Sherlock’s chest and the other fumbling for his mobile. “You are _not_ dying on me. I swear to God, Sherlock,” John growls fiercely, “Not here and certainly not now.”

“Ah,” Sherlock huffs out, a smile ghosting over his blood-stained lips, “Forbidding me to die… Does that work on your other patients?”

John shoots him a dangerous look, phone pressed to his ear. “Shut up,” he chokes out, “Just shut up.”

And, miraculously, Sherlock does. Closing his eyes as John talks on the phone, he rasps in his every breath, the sound of each one shallow and uneven. John’s gaze is on him the entire time he speaks, first calling an ambulance and then Lestrade, his heart hammering so hard in his throat that he is surprised he can get words out at all.

The minute he hangs up, John’s mobile clatters to the ground and his now-free hand rejoins his other one on Sherlock’s wound, the both of them applying a steady force despite the tremors running through them. “They said they’d be here as soon as they can,” John bites out, eyes focused on his hands slowly turning red. His gaze drifts up to Sherlock’s face and the sight of him with his eyes closed unnerves him, sending an electric current of panic through John. “Open your eyes, Sherlock,” he commands suddenly, “Look at me.”

Sherlock obeys, but the ascent of his eyelids is slow and laboured. His shuttered eyes are unfocused and the look is all _wrong_ on Sherlock – his eyes are always supposed to be alert, sharp, intense. Sluggishly, he looks up at John and the doctor notes – his stomach wrenching as he does so – that his usually piercing eyes are shining with tears.

“John,” Sherlock rasps, deep voice no more than a whisper now, “It’s no use. Just –”

“No,” John cuts in, a sob creeping up his throat, “ _No._ You can’t… Not like this, Sherlock. You can’t do this to me.”

“And they say… I’m the selfish one,” quips Sherlock weakly, another dribble of blood spilling over his lips and coursing down his chin. He looks utterly pitiful and John cannot handle him like this – so helpless, so breakable, so… Human. It makes him feel sick – as if he shouldn’t be privy to seeing Sherlock this way – but the other man’s gaze is soft and open, his fading eyes riveted on John saying, _I don’t mind._

"You can’t leave me,” John says fiercely, eyes closing momentarily to blink away the tears ready to fall. “Sherlock, _please_. I don’t…”  A paralyzing sense of urgency suddenly wells up underneath his skin and John feels something as hard and impenetrable as stone suddenly break inside him. “I’ve never said – never told you, Sherlock, but I… You –”

“John,” says Sherlock warningly, eyebrows flickering into a weak frown as he brings one of his hands to rest atop both of John’s, his touch unbearably light. “You’ll only make this… harder for me. Harder for you.” He inhales with difficulty, the agonizing sound slamming into John with the force of a freight train. “It’s hard enough leaving you as your friend. Don’t make me into something harder for you to let go. I’m hardly worth –”

“Don’t,” John breathes and he cannot say any more, looking down and shutting his eyes tight. He can feel the warm slide of tears falling down his face, unchecked, and John desperately wants to take Sherlock’s hand in his, touch his face, run his fingers through his hair – _anything_ but feel the dampness of his friend’s precious blood on his fingers.  “Don’t you _dare_ ,” whispers John, “try to argue with me that you are not worth – that you don’t deserve –” John breathes out harshly through his nose, frustrated, and he opens his eyes again, boring them into Sherlock’s. “You gave me purpose again,” John tells him, his voice raw and almost angry, “You saved my life.  You actually made me feel alive again when I thought that I would never feel anything but numb.  _You_ did that and I don’t – Sherlock, I really can’t –”

“John,” gasps Sherlock, saying his name almost reverentially, “I cannot… properly thank you in the finite amount of time that I have left, but know that I do. Thank you, that is. I thank you for everything… you have done for me.  You have done so much… ”  Sherlock heaves in a struggling lungful of air, pain written in the lines around his eyes, in the determined set of his mouth. “I do not… I do not know how to… How to tell you, exactly, what I have nearly always –” He coughs suddenly and scarlet stream from his lips. His eyes widen – frightened – and all John can do is reach up quickly to wipe the blood away from his mouth while keeping one hand constantly pressed to Sherlock’s wound, willing the slowing heart beneath his fingers to keep on beating.

_Please, God, let him live._

Sherlock regains his shallow breath, but his coughing fit has weakened him and John notes the ashen tint of his friend’s cheeks, the dullness of his eyes. “I thought we’d have… so much more time,” wheezes Sherlock, his cold hand unmoving from John’s, “So much more time for me… to figure out how… Figure out if you…”  He swallows the rest of his words, mustering up a smile. “No matter,” he whispers, eyes soft, “You’re here. John, you’re here and I couldn’t think… of a more preferable way to die.”

“No,” John murmurs thickly, shaking his head as the tears continue to fall steadily, “Sherlock, no.  Please.  _Please_ , no.” He is reduced to nothing but his best friend’s name and pleas. Even though it is Sherlock who has been shot, John feels as if he is the one who is bleeding out - his own life draining from him at the same rate as Sherlock's. As his best friend's eyes dim, John feels the world around him drain of colour - should he look down, he half expects to see a puddle of his own blood mingled with Sherlock's.   

“I truly am sorry… John,” says Sherlock, voice wobbling, and a moment of weakness passes over his slackening features, face contorting in helpless misery. “I would have never left you willingly,” he splutters, his lower lip trembling dangerously, “Believe me, this is… most unwilling on my part.”

“Then fight,” hisses John desperately, teary eyes blazing, “Come _on,_ Sherlock. Stay with me. You have to _fight_ … Try. Try for me. Please.”

Sherlock smiles a watery smile. “I am trying,” he murmurs, “Truly. I will die trying for you, John Watson.”

John hangs his head and heaves a quiet, gut-wrenching sob, shoulders shaking against the onslaught of grief washing over him. Unwittingly, John thinks back to this morning – Sherlock in his blue housecoat, sitting in his chair, drinking his tea, playing his violin – and this moment, in contrast to those earlier ones, feels even more nightmarish in comparison. “Sherlock…” John weeps, looking up again, “Sherlock, I –”

Sherlock is gone.

The sounds of the world around him are replaced by a deafening buzzing sound that rings in John’s ear – like the aftermath of an explosion – as he stares into the unseeing eyes of his more-than best friend. Sherlock’s red mouth is agape – the traces of his final smile ghosting over his lips – and his slack face devoid of its usual intensity guts John completely. Underneath his blood-stained hands, John no longer feels the beat of Sherlock’s heart, or the weak rise and fall of his chest. All he can feel is the phantom heat of his skin. The look of Sherlock’s blank expression and his eyes robbed of their perpetual spark makes a pit of emptiness open up in John, making him feel as if someone has carved out his innards and forgotten to cauterize the damage. He is utterly desolate – like the charred remains of a war-ravaged village – as he takes in the sight of the man sprawled on the ground before him, his great coat spread beneath him, blue scarf askew.

His ears still ringing, John pumps his hands rhythmically on Sherlock’s chest – willing, urging, _begging_ his heart to restart. He bends down to press his mouth to Sherlock’s – _Not like this. Not like this_ – trying to breathe air back into his lungs. John continues this pattern until Lestrade, his team, and the ambulance arrive. Even still, he does not stop.  Lestrade tears him away, restraining him as he shouts and struggles, while the paramedics hoist Sherlock onto a stretcher, rip open his coat and shirt, and immediately apply the defibrillator. John watches his friend’s slight body convulse again and again – each shock more violent than the last – and he feels the sickening persistence of hope lodged painfully in his throat.

_Come back. Please, come back._

The paramedics shake their heads. They put away the metal panels.

John feels his knees give out, but Lestrade holds him up. The sight of his best friend’s body on the stretcher robs John of his voice and he stops struggling. He silently stares at the bullet wound just above his friend’s heart, his eyes riveted to that spot of red on Sherlock’s pale chest, and he thinks of his own injury – the one in his shoulder that should have been fatal, the one that should have killed him in that desert years ago. 

_It should have been me._

Lestrade tries to coax John to sit, tries to lead him away, but John cannot hear the man’s words thick with tears – they sound faraway, unintelligible. Extricating himself from the Detective Inspector’s grip, John lurches forward to grab the cold, metal edge of the stretcher and continues to stare down at Sherlock. Or, rather, what is left of him.  _The brain’s what counts_ , he’d said once, _everything else is transport_. Transport. John looks down at his still body – taking in his exposed chest, his limp hands, his spindly legs, his feet clad in those ridiculous leather shoes he always insisted on wearing – and John cannot help but notice how very small Sherlock looks in his large coat. The man John had always thought larger than life itself looks small in the absence of it and he feels his heart breaks anew at the thought. 

John’s hands move seemingly of their own accord. Slowly, he arranges Sherlock’s ripped shirt to cover his pale chest, fingers straightening the rumpled collar and smoothing the wrinkled material. He readjusts the shoulders of Sherlock’s coat and folds it over his front as if it were buttoned, gingerly brushing away the dirt lingering from the pavement. John touches him the way he has always wanted to – softly, tenderly – and he wonders if Sherlock would have sneered at the sentiment of it.  _Everything else is transport,_ Sherlock’s voice reminds him. Be that as it may, John fixes Sherlock’s beloved scarf, adjusting it the way the detective always had, and touches it briefly before withdrawing his hands. 

Looking up at Sherlock’s face once again – half-expecting him to grin, wink, and explain away the trick because this _must_ be a trick – John is tempted to close his unseeing eyes, but refrains. Sherlock always hated sleep. _Such a waste of time_. Instead, John threads his fingers through Sherlock’s black curls, the heel of his hand resting gently on the detective’s cool forehead.  _The brain’s what counts_ , he hears Sherlock say again and John closes his eyes, inhaling deeply. John stays like this for a minute, mind going blank save for the thought of Sherlock’s favoured organ – his beautiful, wonderful, brilliant brain – tucked away beneath the helmet of flesh and bone under the palm of John’s hand.

He wonders fleetingly if this is what it feels like to pray.

Suddenly, John feels a soft weight on his shoulders. He opens his eyes and looks around. Orange.

“I’m not in shock,” he mumbles gruffly, looking away from the blanket and back at Sherlock, pulling his hand away from his friend's forehead.

Lestrade chokes out a watery laugh. “That’s exactly what he said.”

John cannot – will not – look over at the Detective Inspector, shining eyes resolutely fixed on his best friend. He brings trembling fingers to his cheeks, roughly wiping away the tears, and wills himself to arrange his face into something resembling stoicism, lower lip wobbling traitorously. John suddenly realizes that he has not pictured a future without Sherlock – he has sewn himself into the fabric of John’s life and now John does not know how to extricate him without unraveling completely.  

As John continues to breathe, struggling against tears, Lestrade lays a hand on shoulder, his grip firm. “You made him a good man,” he says, his voice breaking.

John pulls the shock blanket around him tightly. “And he made me a great one,” he replies.   

**Author's Note:**

> I began this piece after the first series of Sherlock aired and left it until I picked it up a few weeks ago and finished what I started. Therefore, this piece has been a bit of a work-in-progress for the past four years even though the bulk of it was written in the course of the past week or so. As it states in the summary, this fic is set during the first series, so this all takes place before Reichenbach, Irene, and even Moriarty. I sincerely hope that you all enjoyed it despite the heavy angst. Of course, I am always looking to improve, so feel free to let me know what you liked and/or didn't like regarding characterization, dialogue, pace, etc. Your thoughts are always incredibly appreciated. Thank you so much for reading!


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